Ok, so I apparently have a bit of a rebel streak in me in that I sort of love this packaging. Yes, I realize that it is deliberately playing a “screw that fairy princess crap” angle. But hey, I’m buying it, hook, line, and sinker. I love the purple-black bottle, the cut-off edge, and I don’t usually like snails, but I like that one.

Freak is described thusly: a mix of poison hemlock, black davana, belladonna, opium flower, caress and kiss notes. I don’t know what caress and kiss notes are, but I like the way they sound. And of course, how could such a counterculture scent NOT have something like poison hemlock in it?

It’s available at the illamasqua website starting Oct. 20, 2011.

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on Wednesday, September 21st, 2011 at 12:50 am by Glinda and is filed under illamasqua, International Flair, Perfume.
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2 Responses to “Illamasqua Freak”

Oh, no, Glinda! Just when I’d convinced myself there were no new perfumes I needed to buy! The angle! The color! THE SNAIL!!! And it doesn’t sound like the same fruity-floral-light musk nonsense that all the mass market perfumers are making these days! Nooooooo! I’m still saving for a full bottle of Frederic Malle’s Bigarade Concentree!

I’m fairly sure the hemlock used in this perfume is the kind that actually has a scent that can be valuable in perfume. That’s made from the hemlock tree (Tsuga Canadensis), a conifer from which you can actually brew a tea that’s rich in vitamin C. Crush the leaves of that plant and it gives you a subtle, pine-y fragrance. The tea’s not fabulous tasting, but it will definitely not kill you.

Crush the leaves of poisonous hemlock (Conium Maculatum, which looks a lot like Queen Anne’s Lace but has parsley-like leaves, as the plant species are related) and the odour you get is politely described in literature as “Mouse”. Not valued for use in perfume, but definitely of value as a medicine, where you don’t have to smell it. People get these plants confused all the time because of the fame of that Hemlock name.

Actually, all the toxic plants supposedly used in this perfume are probably just listed as marketing (perfumers aren’t always, shall we say, honest about the ingredients in their juice, for good reason). While the davana oil is pretty commonly used as a flavouring and scent agent (tastes like rum!), it’s not the species of Artemisia that was used to make Absinthe. Fresh belladonna smells like acrid tomatoes. Opium flower smells of, well, nothing really (but the opium resin, that’s an ancient and common perfume ingredient, which is actually in many perfumes on the market). The “kiss” and “caress” ingredients are the most interesting to me, because these are probably names for patented accords (like the famous “cupcake accord” used in Britney Spears’ “Fantasy” perfume). I’m far more curious about those because I think it’s always interesting to experience how someone else would recreate a “kiss” or a “caress” as an olfactory reality. Ideally, you could wear it and be enveloped in Kiss and Caress the entire day. What is better than that?

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